


just how beautiful you are

by spells



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ......angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, KuroTsukki Fluff Week 2018, M/M, Prompt Fic, Scar Worship, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 03:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spells/pseuds/spells
Summary: Tetsurou’s thumb stops, and he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Not until his head moves, and he mutters, “Baby, what’s this?”





	just how beautiful you are

**Author's Note:**

> this one hits a little too close to home. title comes from ed sheeran's best song, wake me up: _and you will never know/ just how beautiful you are to me_
> 
> **day seven** : _scar worship_ | ~~meet the family | pet~~  
>  **TRIGGER WARNING** : past self-harm, scars

Kei feels borderline untouchable.

After dating for high school and college only, they never had much free time to spend doing nothing. They might still not do, both still in school, but at least now, packed under the same roof, they get to have moments like these.

Tetsurou’s chest is warm against his back, and his caresses are nice and comforting. He would be talking, he was, but the moment Kei hunched closer to his laptop – because he needed to focus, because this was important -, Tetsurou understood. Stopped talking, guided Kei back into a proper posture, and kept quiet.

Tetsurou just knows him. Inside and out, every nook and cranny. No matter what, Kei’s learned to trust him, with whatever, with anything. It really did take years for them to get here, for Kei to take down, brick by brick, the walls around his heart and mind, but they’re here, now. Kei couldn’t be happier.

Kei’s shorts ride up, comfortably, and he doesn’t mind it at all. He’s been here before. Tetsurou traces soft patterns with his thumb, hand sliding slowly, soothingly, up and down his thigh. His lips end up on Kei’s neck, and he tilts it, giving him full access.

He keeps on doing what he needs to do. Typing away on his laptop, index finger sliding across the touchpad, clicking softly.

Tetsurou’s thumb stops, and he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Not until his head moves, and he mutters, “Baby, what’s this?”

Kei doesn’t follow, at first. He frowns and looks at Tetsurou, then follows his gaze down, to his thigh – and it finally clicks.

He feels ashamed, embarrassed, stupid. For some reason, although these… things are years old and faded and unimportant – so much so, that only now has Tetsurou found them –, everything bubbles up, and he feels himself on the verge of tears. Stupidly, hurtfully, everything’s just been bottled up. Tetsurou’s words were like the crack in the dam, and Kei is so afraid of spilling.

“They’re nothing,” he shrugs, dismissively. He turns back to his computer, but he can feel Tetsurou sitting still behind him. It makes his heart squeeze, with remorse and pain, but Kei _refuses_ to cry. “I mean it.”

Tetsurou reaches for his thigh again, and Kei fools himself. Allows himself to think that he has accepted it, and things will go right back to how they were. Instead, Tetsurou slides his shorts further up his thigh, exposing more of his skin and more of his scars.

“Kei…”

Kei clenches his teeth, and his vision starts to blur. He refuses, he refuses.

What hurts the most is not the memories, or the guilt, or his feelings. What hurts the most is Tetsurou’s voice – pained, strained, thick. He sounds disappointed, too, and it tears Kei apart. It makes him feel guilty not only for doing those things, but for existing, for daring to even be something or be someone. If he’s just here to make other people miserable, what is he here for?

Now, he’s quiet. Completely. He doesn’t want to open his mouth to say a word, because he fears what might come out. Not just that, but it’s already taking all of his will not to cry, and he does not want to risk it.

“Kei,” Tetsurou tries again, reaching for his hand, which is still hovering above the laptop keyboard. Before Tetsurou takes it, Kei flinches and pulls away, feeling every attempt at empathy wash away at him, on their way to tear him into pieces.

All he wants to do is cry. He wants to give in, admit defeat. He’s nothing but the fool who tricked everyone into thinking he’s good, into thinking he’s smart – his family, his professors, his classmates, Yamaguchi, Tetsurou. He’s been lying to all of them, all this time. He just wants to stop.

Kei hates it when he strangles out, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, baby,” Tetsurou whimpers, and cradles Kei’s face in his hands. Gently, he guides him to turn, so they’re facing each other, and closes the laptop behind him. He rubs his thumb slowly across Kei’s cheekbone and, when the first tear rolls down, he wipes it away without even meaning to. “Don’t apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” Kei stutters, ignoring him, “I’m sorry I made you upset…”

“You didn’t make me upset. I’m not upset.” He drops one of his hands and carefully takes one of Kei’s in it, wary but firm, since it’s shaking. Tetsurou sighs, and Kei can tell that he’s trying his best to keep it together. Doing everything he can to keep his feelings from his voice, to make sure Kei doesn’t feel worse. Although his voice does sound fine, it only makes Kei feel guiltier. “I’m just confused.”

For a second, they sit in silence, but Tetsurou keeps going.

“I’m confused, because I don’t know why you would do that to yourself. You’re the strongest, smartest, prettiest person I know, and there is no part of you that I don’t love. Please explain it to me, Kei, because I don’t get it.”

Kei isn’t ugly-crying, but the tears still tumble down his cheeks. They’re not thick dollops of sadness, but thin trails that sliver down to his jaw, a bothersome and sticky wetness. He cries silently, until he has to speak – then, his voice is as ugly as could be.

“It’s hard,” he says, voice high-pitched and slick with tears. He clears his throat, and tries again. “It’s really hard to… Be strong. To protect, when there’s no one protecting you. To be angry, and sad, and be unable to just let it out. But it’s easy to just… Make the pain be known. This was easy, and everything else was hard.”

He can tell Tetsurou’s on the verge of tears, too. He presses his lips together, licks them, until he speaks, more breath than voice, “When was this?”

“Mostly junior high,” Kei shrugs. “Kind of up until…”

When his voice falters, Tetsurou leans closer. “Until?”

“I met you,” he mumbles, like his stock of tears has just been refilled.

Tetsurou squeezes his hand, and Kei almost falls apart right there. His other hand is still there, warm, caressing his cheek. It feels like he’s holding Kei together. In a way, he truly is – no matter how.

Again, they’re silent for a moment. Kei can tell Tetsurou’s trying to catch his eye, but he still evades, still looks away every time he gets close. Then, when he gets sick of trying while Kei runs away, Tetsurou speaks.

“I love you,” he says, before anything else. Like it’s a greeting. It makes Kei shake his head stupidly, because he can’t help smiling, and he knows he’s being smiled at. A wet, teary smile, fresh from crying and mumbling soggy words. “And I want to protect you, and listen to you, and support you – no matter how hard, or how sad, or how angry. I hope… Kei. Kei, I hope you know that if anything, I want to be the one to protect you, and to keep you from feeling like that’s the easy way out, ever again.”

He lets go of his face, and gently places his hand atop his thigh. His fingers reach his scars, milky-white slits of healed skin, barely visible if you don’t stop to look at them. They’re clearly old, faded, and they blend like simple blemishes on his skin. Kei wishes they’d disappear, most times. He’s just learned to ignore them.

“I love you,” he says back, and smiles discreetly. “And thank you, Tetsurou.”

Tetsurou leans forward to kiss him, and Kei allows himself to be driven into it. He melts when Tetsurou puts his hands on his shoulders, as if he’s holding him in place, so Kei simply lets himself be held. When they pull apart, Tetsurou doesn’t lose any time – he kisses his jaw and down his neck, gently, surprisingly chaste for such a sensual action. It’s not something that turns Kei on, possibly because of the cryfest. It’s like aftercare, thoughtful just like it.

Their positions are awkward, but instead of fixing it, Tetsurou just brushes past the non-important parts – moves his head straight from Kei’s collarbones to his hips, skipping anything that isn’t necessary – and gets to what he wants to do. He nudges his shorts even further up with his nose, guiding them to the soft curve of his thigh, where it squishes against his hips. He slots the fabric there and kisses every cut he sees, and all the beauty marks mixed in along the way.

Kei feels endlessly embarrassed, like he doesn’t deserve this, and at some point, he hides his face in his hands. However, he doesn’t do it to cry. The opposite, in fact, since he giggles and blushes more with every kiss of Tetsurou’s.

It takes him a few minutes to be done, dozens of kisses scattered across Kei’s thighs – and although the fact that he has to put down so many kisses is a bit shameful, it doesn’t seem to bother him. Once he’s done, he just raises his head, and takes Kei into another kiss.

“You’re beautiful,” he says against his lips after they’ve barely parted, and he slides his hand up Kei’s thigh, until his hip, and bunches his shirt a little upward. The chasteness disappears. “You’re smart.” He kisses the corners of Kei’s mouth, and the blonde interlocks his hands on the back of Tetsurou’s neck. “You’re incredible,” he whispers, finally, and Kei sighs softly amidst both their lips.

“I love you,” he replies, and Tetsurou rubs his side with his hand. Kei’s mind goes hazier.

“Me too,” he says, and pushes Kei back on the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/karasunya)
> 
> we back on track folks. this one was Very Angsty right until the end so, i hope it makes up for it? i might write a sequel to this, someday. continue that open ending. if my lazy ass gets the motivation for it.  
> anyway, idk if i'll be able to post the next fics just fine, bc it'll be christmas and my family is over to celebrate, but i will most certainly try. theyre both v good, im proud of them, so please look forward to em! kudos, comments nd bookmarks are my food . pls dont let me starve. see yall tomorrow!


End file.
